posted
Okay, I'd like to preface this topic by saying that I'm not sure if this is where these sort of posts are meant to be placed. If not, let me know; if it is, feel free to reply at your leisure.
I'm new to this board. I'm twenty-seven, male, and have spent the vast majority of my life in Oklahoma, with the exception of a year teaching English in Japan. I became a Card fan through ENDER'S GAME and still consider it one of the most innovative, exceptional novels I've ever read. Which is odd since I ordinarily don't care for sci-fi books, despite my vast interest in the genre.
I've been a writer since my first year of high school when my AP English teacher forced me to enter a short story into a regional writing contest. I had never written a story before but, being the sort of person never to work far ahead of deadline, I waited till the night before it was due to actually sit down and try to write something resembling a story. I started without a clue what it was going to be about, just mindlessly tapping away at my family's typewriter till I started feeling the story and characters tell me where it was meant to go. Sadly, six pages into my ever-expanding narrative, I remembered that there was a limit of seven pages on all entries. So rather than re-write the entire thing -- I was notoriously lazy in my early days -- I created a quick fix that would wrap up the whole thing in a page and a half. Sloppy, I know, but keep in mind that I had no aspirations at the time of doing anything with writing.
Regardless, I hated the story. Detested it. Told in the first-person, it featured a lead character so utterly unlike me and so hateful and horrible I couldn't read the story without feeling nauseated by him. I took it to school the next day and turned it in.
Four months passed. Then I received a letter in the mail inviting me to attend the contest's awards ceremony as my entry had placed. On my teacher's orders, I went. And as they called up the runners-up, I was waiting to hear my name. When they moved beyond the runners-up, I started getting nervous; I began to think there had been some mistake. Fourth Place, Third Place -- oh, tell me you're kidding ... Second Place -- what?! ... First Place ... My name was called. I stepped up onto the stage, took the trophy from the nice lady, and moved to the podium after being told to say some accepting words. I cannot remember to this day whether I said a word into the microphone; I was in utter shock.
Afterwards, there was a small get-together and I was introduced to the judges. One of them stood out, mostly because he lived not too far from me in Oklahoma. His name was, and remains, Mel Odom.
He shook my hand and smiled. "Your story was disturbing," he said, "and the ending was terrific. It was real."
They passed out booklets with the top three entries reprinted in them. I got together with the other winners and read through them, to see what I'd been up against. And they were good. Better than mine, I thought. As I read through the second place winner's story, I wondered how I'd beat him. His prose was excellent; he had a gift for cosmetic description and a talent for building atmosphere. My story was very dialogue heavy. I couldn't believe I'd beaten him. His was this great sci-fi feast of ideas and imagination; his character was in a desperate race to escape arms extending out from a 1984-style Big Brother complex. At the end, his character got put into an inescapable situation; I found myself truly worried about him. A bullet slammed into his chest and he fell back to the ground in agony as the metal slug split organ fibers and tore apart any chance he had at surviving the ordeal.
Then he woke up. And I hated it; I felt lied to, tricked. I turned to its author and asked, "Why didn't you kill him?" He shrugged and replied, "I don't know. I guess I liked him too much."
I found myself thinking, If you had, he would have died. But I didn't say it.
I went on to nationals and placed Third. The next year, I wrote a totally different story and got Third in regionals. But I found myself getting tired of short stories and wanted to move to larger volumes that would allow me to tell the ideas I was having in their entirety. I never placed again. Went to college and studied all levels of writing, but my primary interest was in expanding my abilities, learning to tell stories that would really affect people. But everything was a test to me; I got passable grades despite going into college on a writing scholarship.
And now, I have a writing agent and have been finishing up a trilogy of film scripts that I've had coalescing in my head for nearly a decade. I know, another trilogy? Wasn't the plan originally but it's what was necessary to tell the whole story; that, or an obscenely long movie that could never get made in this day and age. A treatment from the films has been passed around and there's some interest, but I refused to send out any of the scripts till they were all done. I don't want them fooled with; I want people to read the entire thing and realize how every little part of each script plays a role in the tale's entirety.
Whatever happens with that, I'm happy to be here. I know this was a long introduction by most standards; I apologize for that. But to introduce myself without explaining what's most important to me would be dishonest. I'll try in the future to be more brief in my comments.
Thank you all for your consideration and feedback.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Wow. Didn't quite expect responses that fast. You guys are good.
~ Rivka ~ Glad to meet you too. And thank you. That is, if you meant 'Quite an introduction' in a complimentary way. Heh.
~ PFresh ~ I was born and raised in Oklahoma City. I currently live on the southside but will likely be moving sometime in the near future.
~ Advice ~ If you mean the story that won the awards, I regret to say that I no longer possess a copy of it. Honestly. I might have the pamphlet from the awards ceremony somewhere in my parents' attic, but since I wrote it on a typewriter, I wasn't able to 'save' it quite as easily.
And if you mean the story I'm writing for the films, I'm afraid I can't share it with anyone. Sorry about that. I might write some short fiction on the side to warm up for writing on my bigger projects; if any of those catch my fancy, I'll post them on here for you guys though. Promise.
~ Quid ~ Thank you very much. Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Yeah. OKC has its moments. But my moving isn't really anything against the city. If things start moving once the trilogy is complete, then I'll likely have to move to start things going. Also, there's the girlfriend to consider. Wherever she wants to go, that's where we go.
~ Rivka ~ Well that's certainly good to know. As I said, I'll try to limit myself from this point on, but I felt getting that stuff out of the way right off was a worthwhile thing to do.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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~ EI JT ~ It's a fantasy story that doesn't feature hobbits or elves or orcs. That said, it does feature some of the Tolkien type fantasy staples -- such as swords and sorcery. At least, that's what it's about on the surface.
What it's truly about is modern life. War, terrorism, religion, politics, the difficulties inherent to being moral or following a credo the rest of the world considers old-fashioned or naive. In other words, I'm being overly ambitious and trying to do what Tolkien did for World War II with what is happening in the world today.
And yes, I'm a Browncoat. Though I've always found that an unfortunate name for a fan club.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I meant the original story, and I'm sad you don't have it anymore. I for one would have liked to read it. Alas! Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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The original story was about a detective in New Orleans tracking down a serial killer. You saw everything through the detective's eyes. An odd thing that happened while I was in college though: I took a Graphic Novel course where we read things like WATCHMEN, V FOR VENDETTA, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and the like, and I found out that a guy I went to high school with had turned the story into a graphic novel for his semester final. Never got to see it though, but I was assured that it was drawn in pen and not colored. Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I love long introductory posts. I love long posts of almost every kind, actually. You sound like you'll fit in here perfectly. I'm glad you found us.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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It was a term I invented for an online game I was working on with some people several years ago. It's the title for what is essentially a politically ambitious druid. More specifically, they were called 'Doma,' a shortened version of the word 'dogma.' The 'Domasai' is their religious and political leader, similar to the pope. And I liked the term enough to start using it as my nick following the creative team's break-up.
Me too, blackwolv. Me too. Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:I found out that a guy I went to high school with had turned the story into a graphic novel
Cool. That would be nice to see to.
Your introduction was... riveting, and I don't know how that is possible from an introduction. So I imagine your books would be just as nice. Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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~ Human ~ Riveting? Hmm. I hope they are. It'd be sad if the only way I were able to produce quality intensity in my writing is for intro pieces on online forums.
~ Tante ~ No, I didn't expect you to know where the name came from. I've heard it can also mean 'Lord of Mosquitoes,' but I haven't verified that yet. If it's true, I'm happy though. I love semi-meaningful terms that occur by accident.
As for going weak in the knees ...
And thanks, Carrie, I hope my stay here is enjoyable, though I'll have to assume how much you liked my intro at this point. I hope very much.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I had a very similar experience to your high school contest, Domasai.
I was a Junior and was getting really tired of school in general. In elementary school I was home schooled, had a 4.0 and was passionate about learning. I did three days of work in about three hours, and got in trouble if I did more. Then high school. All of a sudden I had to sit in class rooms for almost eight hours, then go home and do hours of homework. Every day. So I didn't. If I wanted to do an assignment I got 100% on it. If I didn't, I got a zero for non-completion. My teachers loved/hated me.
Anyway, Junior year. I was in AP English, and we were required to enter the Anne Frank writing competition put on by Denver University. I wrote one draft of a story in one sitting. I wasn't about to do research for this, so I just threw in a couple token references to the required concepts-to-include, of which there were a list. My teacher told me that I hadn't put enough of the requirements in for my story to go anywhere, and suggested a rewrite. Nope. Off it went in it's first draft state.
I won first place.
Posts: 180 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Wow. I've been here a day and you Googled me? lol. That's pretty thorough, Tante.
~ Human ~ Glad you liked it. Never expected to get this much reaction out of it, but it's nice for meeting everyone.
~ R. Ann Dryden ~ Very cool. Nice to come across people with similar backgrounds in some cases, though I was publicly schooled pretty much from birth. My parents sort of had a match of tug-of-war over how I spent my time growing up. My father wanted me in sports, which his side of the family is known for; my mother was interested in making sure I read all the time. So I tried to satisfy both. I was an all-state athlete and was ahead of most other kids my age in reading level growing up. I was primarily reading books on Greek and Roman mythology when I was in 1st and 2nd grade; I ignored all the 'kiddie' books, as they bored me to tears.
So what happened? Per my father's instructions, I ended up playing more sports than I should till I blew out both my knees and ankles, thus ending any future in athletics. And following my mother's suggestions, I ended up aspiring to be a storyteller. All in all, I think it worked out for the best.
But yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to reading your work in the InterGalactic Medicine issue.
posted
Although, looking back on it, I still really love the story I wrote. I wasn't being flippant when I wrote it, honest, though my above post made it sound that way.
The story was about an old Jewish lady trying to clean out her attic before she dies, which contains mementos and memories of WWII.
Posts: 180 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Sorry, Treason. But I wrote it on typewriter. Any existing copies of it are in those pamphlets then, and I don't have one of those personally with me at my place. And believe me, compared to my more current work, it was dreadful. I admire what it did for me and I feel that was a raw edge to the writing, but it was such an obscenely convoluted piece of prose that I have never been fond of it. Plus, I hate the main character. People called him fascinating but he was utterly horrible. So I felt no need to really keep copies of it lying around.
That said, I'm sorry for not having it available to mete everyone's interest.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Well, I can't put anyone in my next story till I know more about them. That said, I usually avoid basing characters directly off anyone I know. For a variety of reasons really.
And thus far, I am enjoying Hatrack quite a bit. So thank you for the well-wishing. Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Thanks dude. Long may the thrones of the Valar endure! I like your introduction alot. You should post your story sometime. Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Well, I can't post that story but it's possible I'll post A story at some point in the future. I routinely will write what I consider to be 'throw-away' stories to warm myself up before tackling a big scene in one of my planned projects. It tends to help me hit the ground running, so to speak, and not write stuff I end up having to toss out -- beyond the warm-up piece which wasn't meant to be anything in the first place.
That's not to say that they're bad. They simply aren't what I'm focusing on, though I occasionally find diamonds in the rough and will sometimes try to salvage them into a more prominent future project. For now, I think all my warm-up pieces are ones that I'm salvaging; I've had a lot of luck with them lately. But once I get one that I know I won't want to expand upon beyond itself, I'll definitely put it online for everyone.
And I know that may sound sort of like me tossing you guys scraps, but much of what I'm working on is being shopped around and I would prefer to keep the vast majority of those things very, very hidden at this point in the process.
I hope that'll do for you guys. Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote: And I know that may sound sort of like me tossing you guys scraps, but much of what I'm working on is being shopped around and I would prefer to keep the vast majority of those things very, very hidden at this point in the process.
We understand. But when you get a contract and it's all finalised you can tell us and then we can go see the movie. Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Oo, I'm intrigued by this fantasy story. If you ever want to put anything through the forum for opinions I'm sure everyone will be oh so happy to read it. Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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Welcome, Domasai. I read your intro last night/early morning, but when its closing in on 4 AM in the morning one tends to get slightly punchy with responses. And, as funny as punchy posts can be, they can get people into trouble.
Someday we can say, "We knew you when."
Posts: 822 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Well, thank you all for your warm welcome once again. Though I agree with Advice For Robots, it's hardly necessary -- I'm going to stick around for quite a while, so there's no need to stroke the ol' ego; it's quite large enough.
And yes, if and when the scripts I write are completely finished, shot out to the Hollywood, and made (or unmade more likely) I will let you all know. Since in either case, I get paid a lot of money, and I can give up my day job of entertaining you lot. Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2005
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